


Did I Hurt You?

by Soulvaren5555



Series: Clone Wars Febuwhump 2021 [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Gets a Hug, Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka Tano Whump, Ahsoka Tano-centric, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Hallucinations, Have Snips and Skyguy feels to make up for it maybe hopefully, Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I know this is late I'm so sorry, Memory Loss, Nightmares, No Beta We Die Like Clones, Post-Mortis Arc (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Protective Anakin Skywalker, References to Mortis Arc (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Whump, snips and skyguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29776269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulvaren5555/pseuds/Soulvaren5555
Summary: Febuwhump 2021 - Day 14: "I didn't mean it" | Day 24: Memory lossA week after returning from Mortis, Ahsoka can't get the experience out of her head. Especially the part she can't remember, no matter how hard she tries.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Clone Wars Febuwhump 2021 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2139531
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	Did I Hurt You?

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO I'M NOT DEAD!! First of all, my most sincere apologies for not keeping up with the days! Over the past couple weeks, I hit a really bad emotional slump. I lost motivation and felt unwell every day. I managed to write a few days out of those weeks, but I could never find the time or motivation to finish. However, I'm getting my groove back, and I'm determined to finish these Febuwhump prompts by the end of this week before I go on vacation, plus a few other things to make up for my absence (I hope)!
> 
> Also, this one sort of follows the slight canon divergence of my first Febuwhump fic, Flickering Light. You don't need to read it to understand what's happening; basically, Ahsoka fought back against the Son's influence instead of it taking her over completely.

Mortis was an... _interesting_ experience.

It was one the three Jedi didn’t intend to share, and it was one they seldom spoke of. At first, it wasn’t entirely certain as to whether or not the events that took place on that planet actually happened. It all felt too dreamlike. They apparently hadn’t been gone for very long at all to everyone else, but to them, it had been at least two days, and _what an eventful two days they were._

As if being summoned by a god of the Force to an ever changing planet of Light and Dark wasn’t strange enough, Ahsoka couldn’t even remember all of it.

There was a significant gap in her memory, one she wasn’t getting any answers to. Whatever occurred in between her passing out in the tower the Son had locked her up in and Anakin embracing her was unknown. With each passing day, it was getting harder to ignore the need to find out what happened.

It had been a week and a half since Mortis, and she still couldn’t get the confusion of it all out of her head. She tried asking what happened before, and it didn’t get her anywhere. Anakin attempted to brush it off when she brought it up to him, saying she didn’t miss much before changing the topic. Obi-Wan was reluctant to discuss Mortis as well. She couldn’t blame either of them for not wanting to talk about it.

Eventually, she stopped mentioning it, fully realizing that she wouldn’t be getting answers from either of them anytime soon. She thought she could let it go by the end of the week. There were many reasons for her to drop it and move on; not only did she have her studies to keep up with, but they were also in the middle of a war. Mortis was in the past. What was done was done, and she shouldn’t be worrying this much about it.

And yet, something was _off._

Sometimes, she would hear whispering at the back of her mind, quiet and chilling. It hadn’t been there prior to being brought to Mortis. She never asked anyone around her if they could hear it as well, knowing full-well that she was the only one. It would grow intense enough to send a chill down her spine, and she would whirl around, and no one would be behind her.

Some glances in the mirror revealed darkened veins underneath her skin and a hint of yellow in her eyes. With a single blink, the terrifying imagery would vanish, and she would look like herself again. It wasn’t real, that she knew, but it was an awful sight nonetheless.

As she kept seeing it every once and a while, she began to wonder if she had been corrupted on Mortis. It almost made too much sense, given everything that happened before and after the memory gap. She grew more sure of it with each passing day, and while she would normally have not hesitated to question Anakin about it, she wanted to be absolutely certain first.

If she was right, and she had Fallen temporarily, it couldn’t have been a pleasant experience for Anakin or Obi-Wan, much less herself. In that case, she understood completely why they seemed to want to leave it in the past. It almost made her want to forget it entirely, but that wasn’t going to happen, especially since nightmares were now part of the equation.

Unfortunately, they were a common occurrence for her. A new nightmare usually followed every battle she fought, and they kept getting worse. Dealing with them was a process that got easier with time, but that didn’t mean she could make the nightmares go away entirely. The images always haunted her, even after she opened her eyes.

Tonight’s nightmare was one of the worst ones.

It was different from the rest. Instead of taking place on a battlefield soaked in blood, the bodies of her comrades surrounding her, or at the Jedi Temple, alone and abandoned by everyone she ever cared about, she found herself back on Mortis. The images were out of focus, and it was hard to tell what was happening half the time, but what she saw instilled dread, curiosity and confusion in her nonetheless.

She saw flashes of green and blue. She could hear multiple voices, and she recognized them as belonging to Anakin, Obi-Wan and the Son, yet she couldn’t tell what they were saying. She swore she could hear her own voice among them, except it sounded aggressive, vicious, and _unlike her._

She felt as though she were desperately trying to stay afloat, only to drown in an endless, overwhelming sea of darkness. She couldn’t gain any control over herself, no matter how hard she fought, and she was completely submerged in the cold darkness. Strangely enough, she could move somewhat afterwards, though she couldn’t tell if she had a physical form.

Searching the void for what felt like an eternity eventually yielded a mirror of sorts. As soon as she peered into it, the same Sith-like visage of herself she hallucinated every now and then appeared. Her sickeningly golden eyes were highlighted by charcoal veins, the sight frightening her enough to immediately tear her away from the darkness.

_Always with the criticism, Master. Never really believing in me, trusting me... well, I don’t need you anymore._

_I feel more like myself than I ever have._

_Don’t call me that! **I hate it when you call me that!!**_

Ahsoka awoke with a start, gasping as her eyes flew open. She tensed up, scanning the dark room for anything out of the ordinary before realizing she was alone and in her quarters. She was fine. She wasn’t back on Mortis, the cold shadows weren’t there, and she was _okay._

Her breath shuddered as she sighed in relief and propped herself up on her elbows, sitting up in bed. She rubbed her eyes, attempting to take her thoughts off of the horrible imagery burned into her mind by focusing on her breathing. If she didn’t stop emanating _fear-panic-confusion_ into the Force, her Master would sense it and drop everything he was doing to make sure she was absolutely fine.

He’d been doing that a lot lately; acting more protective than he usually did. She appreciated how much he cared for her well-being, but it also meant he paid less attention to his own needs. She always wanted to tell him the same thing every time he was worried over something small, like her having a headache or being slightly cold. She was fine, she wasn’t dying, she’d been through worse before, _go to sleep, Master, why are you always up so late?_

_Why aren’t you taking care of yourself too?_

Was she fine right now? Of course she was. She had to be. It was only a nightmare, even if it was new and horrifying. She had handled plenty of them before, and she could do it again. She was already taking care of it the usual way, steadying her breathing first before doing anything else. Focusing on the silence that surrounded her and the knowledge that nothing was there to hurt her.

She couldn’t stop shaking, however, and it wasn’t caused by her being cold. She gripped the bed sheets tightly, her knuckles paling. The images weren’t leaving her mind, and neither were the voices. The more focus she poured into calming down, the faster her nerves raced. She could barely sense her Master’s presence growing closer with every passing second, having noticed the distress she was trying to push down.

_Was that a dream? Or was it a vision? I would know if it was a vision, I’ve had those before... wait. Those were of the future. What I saw clearly happened a week ago, unless it’s actually a dream and I’m overthinking things again-_

“Ahsoka? Are you okay? Ahsoka!”

Anakin’s voice snapped her out of her daze, his surprise arrival causing her body to jerk. She lifted her eyes to meet his concerned ones, blinking twice. _How did I not notice him here?_

“O-oh, sorry Master,” she apologized, shifting to sit cross-legged on her bed. She bit back a yawn. “I spaced out. Do you need anything?”

“Yeah. I need to know if you’re alright.” Anakin frowned. “I sensed your distress.”

She batted a hand at him. “I had a bad dream, that’s all. I’m fine now. You don’t need to worry.”

“Are you sure? You were shaking when I got here, and you still are.”

“I am?” She glanced down at her hands, which were, in fact, trembling. She cursed internally. She wore a small yet nervous smile. “Well, I’m... I’m a little... cold?”

As soon as Anakin crossed his arms and shot her an ‘are you serious’ look, she sighed in defeat, her shoulders slumping. “Fine, I’m not cold,” she admitted quietly, nervousness spiking.

She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him something other than the truth. Describe the nightmare differently, say she was somewhere else. Don’t make it about Mortis. He doesn’t want to talk about it and he won’t. It’ll go a lot smoother if the conversation wasn’t about that cursed planet.

All the same...

“Listen... I need to talk to you about something important. It’s about Mortis.”

Before her Master could reply, she cut him off, her words tumbling out. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, and I get it. It’s not something I enjoy thinking about either, but I _can’t_ get it out of my head. I keep seeing things, _hearing_ things... dark things. They’re there, and then they’re not. They’re distracting, to say the least.”

Anakin’s ensuing expression was a mixture of confusion and concern. “How long has this been going on? What have you been seeing? Did you see it in your dream? Is this the first time you’re dreaming about-”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down with the questions, Skyguy!” Ahsoka exclaimed, laughing a bit. “Maybe one or two at once next time? Though now that you’ve asked _almost_ four, I might as well answer all of them.”

She took a deep breath, bringing the images she’d been seeing to the forefront of her mind. She noticed her Master kneeling down to her level. He didn’t need to say anything. _Take your time._

“Okay. First, and you may already be suspecting this, but it’s been going on for the past week. And I know what you’re thinking, why didn’t I tell you before? I, well... again, you didn’t seem to want to talk about Mortis, and I thought it would go away if I ignored them. They didn’t, so that’s just... _fantastic_.

“Second, what I’ve been seeing... I look different in the mirror sometimes. My veins are darker-” She absently traced a vein along her arm as she spoke, “-and my eyes are yellow. They go away in the blink of an eye, but they were _there._ As for what I’ve been hearing, it’s only whispering. I don’t know what it belongs to, but it makes me think someone is there at times, but when I go to check, no one is actually there.

“Third, yes, I did see the same thing in my dream, along with some new sights. There was flashing green and blue, you and Master Obi-Wan were shouting something I couldn’t hear, I think the Son was there too... it’s all a blur. It ended with what I’ve been hallucinating since we got back.

“And fourth... this is the first time I’m dreaming about Mortis. It was only hallucinations at first. Now it’s progressed to nightmares, and- and I can’t help but think about what I missed. You remember, right? I woke up, I asked what happened, and you told me it was nothing much.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe it was ‘nothing much’ anymore,” she went on, her voice quivering ever so slightly. “Not that I really believed it in the first place, but escaping took priority at the time, and you were put through enough. Again, I know you don’t want to tell me everything, even if I asked now, so maybe...”

She glanced away from him, carefully rubbing her knuckles. “How about this? You tell me one thing that happened while I was out. Just one detail. Maybe more if you’d like, but one will be good enough, and I’ll never bring it up again. I swear.”

She kept her gaze on her lap, expecting him to avoid the topic. She expected he would refuse her offer or comfort her in any other way than what she wanted. They were both silent, letting her request hang in the air for around half a minute. Eventually, she heard a sigh from Anakin.

“Look,” he began carefully. She finally lifted her head to meet his eyes. “I want you to know that what happened wasn’t your fault. Don’t tell me you could have avoided it if you were stronger, faster, more observant, and so on. What happened with you was the Son’s fault, not your own.”

She felt the urge to say something in response, but she held her tongue. If she interrupted now, he might not tell her anything. Instead, she gave a silent nod, mentally preparing herself for what she was about to hear.

“The Son did something to you. He _changed_ you. When I found you, you weren’t yourself. You were made to do his bidding, and I couldn’t reach you in time to stop it. We eventually found a way to return you to normal, but it... wasn’t easy.”

Ahsoka allowed the icy horror of the revelation to sink in, taking a slow breath to keep herself from losing self-control. “The green and blue... you had to fight me, didn’t you...?” she whispered. “I Fell.”

Anakin shook his head. “No, you didn’t Fall. It wasn’t your choice, you were turned against your will. Remember what I just said? It wasn’t your fault.”

“How was it not? Did I fight back? Did I... did I _hurt_ you?”

To her surprise, Anakin chuckled. “No, no. You could never hurt me, Ahsoka. Obi-Wan and I were fine. You were fighting back, I could see it. You would freeze every now and then. It was like you came back for a split second each time.”

That must have been why she was drowning in darkness. It must have been actively trying to push her back as she fought whatever spell the Son apparently put her under. The urge to rub her temples was present, but it was too far away to act upon. She was doing okay so far. No crying, no further shaking. She wasn’t sure Anakin was telling the truth when he said she hadn’t hurt him.

“Did I hurt you in another way?” she asked hesitantly.

“What do you mean?”

“Right before I woke up, I heard a few things. It sounded like my voice, but... distorted? It barely felt real, but it said things like ‘I don’t need you anymore’ and ‘I hate it when you call me that’.”

Anakin nodded solemnly. “Yeah.”

Her eyes widened. “I actually said those things? To you?”

A pause, and then a small nod. “You told me you hated it when I called you Snips.”

She somehow managed to keep herself from wincing. She could tell he was hesitating when mentioning the nickname he’d given her since they first met. After Mortis, he started saying it less, and she thought it odd. Now she no longer had to wonder why.

“I... I’m so sorry,” she apologized, fighting back tears. “I didn’t mean it. Any of it. I still need you, Master.”

Before she could think about what she was doing, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him in a loose hug. He swiftly returned the embrace, holding her with a grip tighter than her own. She couldn’t help but smile.

“I don’t hate it when you call me Snips,” she admitted, her voice muffled as she buried her face in his shoulder.

She heard him chuckle quietly. “I thought it annoyed you.”

“Hate’s a strong word, though! Stronger than ‘annoy’, anyway...”

“So it does annoy you?”

“...Not as much as it used to.”

Anakin gently pulled her away from him, patting her on the shoulder. “That’s good. I do hope you don’t mind if I continue to annoy you then, Snips.”

Ahsoka grinned. “As long as you don’t mind either, Skyguy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm y'know Mortis might be my favorite TCW arc besides the Siege of Mandalore, it's kinda unclear from the three fics I've posted centered around it, I dunno, I PROBABLY like it a lot-


End file.
